Bruce Williams,
a recovering English teacher and poet who has been active in the Los
Angeles poetry world for some time. He has published three chapbooks:
Holistic Dressing, from Pudding House Press, Stratification from the Inevitable Press, and
Everyone in My Support Group Feels More Grateful When I Share,
also from Inevitable. Bruces poetry mixes humor with despair, or
perhaps the other way around. Currently he has two full-length
manuscripts he is working on:
Less Popular Body Parts and The Adventures of Bruce, Ellen, Tammy Teardrop, and Rust
Jeep.
He lives in San Dimas, thirty miles east of Los Angeles, with his
family and two dissatisfied cats. Bruce teaches writing at Mt. San
Antonio College. In his spare time he worries.

But how could you think
without it to help you lean
and position your chin against your fist,
or ever unfurrow your brow
with no way to lever up a glass?

Necessary as a jack when
a tire rolls flat. Indispensable
beneath the backboard,
when your spouse says something dumb,
or when you need to make a place in line.
But glamorous, enticing? Please. Ugly,
chapped, a pebbled, dirt road.

But look from the inside
fold it to a crease like other things:
make someone drunk enough to kiss it,
tongue down that manufactured line:
You'd be surprised.